The Transfer Tavern

Introducing: Kazaiah Sterling as the man to help Sunderland finish strong this season

Ever since Josh Maja made his way out of Sunderland and moved to Bordeaux the elephant in the room amongst the Black Cats is who will be their main talisman. Aiden McGeady has stepped up with the goals but January signing Will Grigg has failed to impress. As a result of that, it’s high time Jack Ross had some faith in Kazaiah Sterling.

The 20-year-old striker made the move north from London to Sunderland when he went to The Stadium of Light on-loan in January, and so far he is yet to really have an impact on the club. However, the Spurs man has done well for the Lilywhites at youth level in the Premier League 2, so there really is no reason why he can’t have the same impact in League One if given a run of games and the chance to flourish.

Tottenham fans all expected big things of Sterling when he came through, and whilst his progress has stalled somewhat there is certainly a quality player in there that a little bit of game time should be able to get out of him. He wouldn’t be the first player to thrive whilst on-loan at The Stadium of Light from Tottenham, as Danny Rose did the same thing back in the 2012/13 season.

In that time, Rose scored just the one goal, although to be fair to him he did feature as a left-sided midfielder and a left-back. If Kazaiah Sterling gets a run of games in the side then there is absolutely no doubting that he would bring more goals than Rose did in that loan spell seven years ago. So far Will Grigh has been the man used by Jack Ross up front, but quite frankly it isn’t working.

So far, Grigg has scored a grand total of one goal in his eight League One appearances, and that one goal came in a 4-2 win over Gillingham, a game they’d have won even if he hadn’t bagged. With that in mind, it is surely time for Ross to drop the 27-year-old and bring in the younger, fresh-faced Kazaiah Sterling who will be desperate to rack up some minutes, score some goals and return to Tottenham ready to prove a point at their new stadium.